Two Can Keep a Secret
by Sapsorrow86
Summary: The biggest secret between them is not the darkness in him, but the one in her. (Set sometime after season 2)


The fighting has turned gruesome, since the Jolly Roger came back from Neverland and Storybrooke became once again host to powerful magical entities. It's not often that the attacks come, but when they do they can be relentless. They are fanatics, intent on waging a holy war against magic and magic-users, and everyone fights. They all have someone to protect, if not themselves. Every citizen from the Enchanted Forest is considered a dangerous subject that needs to be exterminated, they aim to take no prisoners and spare no soul.

Some try to keep the fight clean. Snow and Charming, for one, even when someone close is at risk. Emma Swan struggles to do the right thing instead of letting the power inside her overwhelm her. Others, like Bae, are more ambiguous about it all, less willing to let their morals cost them a loved one. For Henry's sake he clings to honour but pretends to look the other way when his father doesn't.

Rumplestilskin knows that doing the right thing can only work if other people on your side don't. He doesn't mind being the monster, getting looks from those he's allied to, if it means that his family will be safe. He won't loose his son or grandson again, not when he has the means to protect them. If those means tends towards the gruesome so be it. Belle struggles with it, with the blood on his clothes from time to time and the look of unrepentant satisfaction he wears after torturing information out of an attacker or worse. She cannot deny that his efforts help protect those she loves desperately, that he saves many people's lives as he ends others. And she can't deny either that it's only his dirty fighting that it's allowing the rest of them to play fair. But still, Rumplestiltskin revelling on his dark side is not something she can ignore, particularly when she has made issue of it before.

When he comes home with spots of blood over his cuffs and a loosened tie she already knows what he's done and is hoping he'll show remorse. He disappoints her, though he seems a bit pained to do so. He doesn't mind hurting others, but he dislikes deeply hurting her.

"I can't do this anymore, Rumple." Her voice is faint and rough, and she looks on the verge of tears. "I can't be with you while you behave like this."

"Sweetheart..." He lowers his voice so he's crooning softly at her, taking slow steps to approach her, careful so she won't bolt away. "You know it's necessary. It's us or them."

She takes a few steps back because having Rumple near has always made it hard to think straight and she needs to, needs to be strong, to do the brave thing.

"No. It's not necessary for you to enjoy it. And you do, so much. Exerting power over others, over those who would subdue you... You love it. More than you love me, I think."

It's not true, not really, and he tells her so over and over, watching as tears run down her cheeks. He's close enough now to gently wipe them away and she lets him, even though he can tell she wishes she didn't. She keeps repeating she needs to leave, leave him, leave them, and once upon a time he would've panicked, but he doesn't anymore. He knows better now.

"Hush, darling, none of that nonsense. No need to do anything rash."

She keeps muttering that she can't stay with him, not when he's letting the darkness consume him, and he can tell she means it. She's consumed by the guilt of condoning his behaviour with her silent acceptance, but there's something else, something deeper, that pushes her into actively opposing him by leaving. Something he won't ever admit to knowing about her, something he knows she pretends not to see. He realized it only after meeting Lacey, and watching her eyes as he beat some poor soul or threatened some other. They lit up in a very Belle-like way, a way he remembered from way back at the Dark Castle, when Belle would laugh at his dark, twisted jokes. Laugh at his darkness.

The conclusion, once he reached it, was obvious. Belle loved him, all of him. True love was all-encompassing. There was no "despite of" or "except". It embraced everything. He'd never paused to think that it might mean Belle loved his darkness too. She knew it was bad for him, she strove to push it away, but she loved it all the same. It excited her, it called out to some odd, unexplored part of her only he knew. Lacey had been very vocal about it, too accepting. But Belle kept it her dirty little secret, kept it even from herself. And her guilt doubled when he behaved like the monster he was in part, because she couldn't help but be thrilled by it, specially knowing his monstrous behaviour was to protect her.

He tells her so in soft murmurs as he gathers her into his arms, pressing her back against the wall and letting his hands caress her in slow, soothing patterns. He tells her of his devotion to her, of his complete love and his fervent wish to keep anyone from ever hurting her again. She struggles feebly against him for a few more minutes, her protests dying out as she relaxes into the embrace. He doesn't forcibly keep her there, he could never, in any way, restrain her, take her freedom from her. But she fights him only because she knows it's what she should do, what she should want to do, even though she secretly hopes he will not let her go, so he plays the part. That she denies the darkness in her that calls out to his excites him.

"I can't stay. Let go."

"Nonsense." He dips his head to kiss her throat, open-mouthed, wet kisses that have a hint of teeth and speak both of love and lust. His hands find hers and he presses them gently against the wall on either side of her head. He laces his fingers through hers, noticing that they tremble. The look in her eyes tells him it's not fear. "It's okay, Belle. Everything's going to be alright. I'm protecting you. You and Bae and Henry. And the town." As he speaks he continues to devour her throat, hungry for her inevitable surrender. "I mean good."

"Your ends might be good, but how you go about it..." Her breath hitches and he sinks his teeth into the juncture of her neck and shoulder, and he knows by how she clutches at his hands that she's fighting a moan. "I can't... I..."

He finds the spot where her jaw ends, just beneath her right ear, that makes her toes curl and sucks on it, ending her protests. She slumps, boneless, against him, and though he loves how he's the only thing keeping her upright he knows she won't stay passive for long. He's counting on it. He kisses his way across her right cheek till he finds her mouth and when he slants his lips across hers it takes little incentive to get her to kiss him back with abandon, like she's dying for it. He allows himself to be rough with her, to use his teeth and wrench his hands from hers to clutch at her waist and sink into her hair, tugging at it harshly. She can't help her vocal response, the satisfied little mewls she utters into his mouth, nor the way her body grows hot and ready for him, a nervous energy stealing over her, urging her to take action.

When she wraps her legs around him everything is bliss. He spares a thought to send a jolt of magic to his right leg, to temporarily make it strong enough to bear his weight and hers, and then everything in him becomes happily consumed by the warm body pressing against him, soft and gentle. It's what he needs after all the blood and violence of the day, topped by the entire town's disapproval and Bae's eyes refusing to meet his. This is what proves to him that, no matter what he's done that day, he can be a better man.

But, right now, he wants to show her the darkness loves her too, desperately. It may crave blood and pain, but it also desires her, her happiness, her acceptance. He finds it in the way she wraps her arms around him, clutching at him firmly as she attempts to draw him into her body completely. Their clothes pile up on the floor soon enough, a combination of slow undressing and desperate ripping. He has her up against the wall, little foreplay needed. She loves him wicked, loves the thrill of having him feral and amoral, a beast who whispers filthy things in her ear and who smells of dark magic and blood.

Later they take things to the bed where it's unhurried and tender, the monster turning back into a man, a man who wants to be better, be the best version of himself. And it excites her too, this power she has to change him so, to make the beast retreat. They end the evening wrapped tightly around each other, cosy under the covers. Nothing has been resolved, and nothing will for a long time. He'll try to do better, to be better, to let others like Regina and perhaps the Charmings get their hands dirty for a change. He knows it won't last, that soon the threat will be too strong to stick to playing fair, but he knows too that he can never stop trying.

For Belle, if nothing else.


End file.
